Battery plant razing energizes plan

Former Allentown Exide facility could host shopping center with a Wal-Mart.

July 03, 2007|By Paul Muschick Of The Morning Call

The former Exide battery plant in Allentown is scheduled to be razed in a few weeks, clearing the site for redevelopment as a $20 million to $25 million shopping center.

"I think once it comes down and the site is cleared, it becomes a lot more attractive to potential tenants," said Thomas Shaughnessy, an official with developer J.G. Petrucci Co. in Bethlehem.

Petrucci envisions a 110,000-square-foot retail center at the site on Lehigh Street, near Interstate 78 and Queen City Airport.

It aims to attract "one of the nation's largest and most recognizable name-brand national retailers, in addition to several smaller national specialty retailers," according to talking points prepared for a public hearing held at City Hall last week on the project.

The hearing was held by the city because it is applying for a $2.5 million federal loan on Petrucci's behalf. Allentown already has secured a $2 million federal grant to clean up pollution on the land.

Several years ago, a Montgomery County developer proposed a Wal-Mart there.

Petrucci officials say they have not lined up any stores yet, and Wal-Mart remains an option.

The site is considered a brownfield, a former industrial property where contamination or just the fear of potential contamination can scare off redevelopers because of the cleanup cost.

Exide manufactured vehicle batteries at the site from about 1955 until 1989, and stored used batteries there for a while afterward until it was bought by Petrucci in 2005.

Soil and water samples have shown evidence of lead, tetrachloroethene, bromomethane, cadmium, thallium, iron and manganese, according to an environmental analysis.

While the report notes the pollution, it says the site "generally meets" health standards for non-residential development.

Petrucci has filed a cleanup plan with the state Department of Environmental Protection and is awaiting approval.

The developer intends to bury contaminated soil, a process known as "capping," by paving over it, adding fresh soil or building on top of it. The groundwater will continue to be tested, but the environmental report notes it is not used for on- or off-site drinking.

State officials have designated the property with its highest priority for cleanup, which Petrucci hopes will expedite the permitting process for environmental and adjacent road work.

Demolition of the existing 185,000-square-foot building and construction of the new center is expected to create several hundred temporary construction jobs.

The finished development is expected to employ 79 people. At least 41 of them must be low- and moderate-income applicants, as a condition of the federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.